Saturday Night

November 28th, 2006
Thomas

I strip Thomas down for his bath. His naked self always surprises me. He’s so big, and not just in the sense of mass. He’s so solid, so alive. His pink light, unveiled, fills the room.

I slide him into his bath ring and watch him smack the water with his pudgy, stubby hands. I scrub his head with white shampoo foam and dig the lint out of his neck folds and armpits and toe-creases. I haul him out, dripping, rub him down, and stuff his shivering flesh into his blue-and-red fleece sleeper. (Literally stuff. He loves to spread his fingers out when I try to thread his arms into his sleeves.)

I cradle him on my lap, warming him, and hold his bottle while he sucks down six ounces of milky heaven. After four ounces his eyelids begin to flutter and his muscles soften. He sinks into my space, heavy with impending sleep.

I carry him to the crib in his darkened room, lay him down, arrange his limbs just so, and pull up the flannel blanket. He lays on his stomach–head resting on his left cheek, slanted eyelids shut, arms bent up at the elbows. The Christmas lights hang twinkling from the eave outside his window. Pink and blue and yellow and green, the light washes across the carpet and touches his face. He is the picture of nostalgia, rosy-cheeked sleeping cherub, all lovely and clean and still.

As I stand and watch, my cells swell to fulness, brimming over with a breathing prayer: thank you.

Children of God

October 19th, 2006
Mothering, Spirituality, Thomas

One year later, the memory is still fresh enough to bring sharp tears.

It’s a given that childbirth is painful. Even with the pain relief measures I’ve accepted each time, it has still hurt. A lot. But Thomas’s birth was in a whole different category of pain.

I think it was a combination of factors–the physical and emotional stress that had built up for two weeks beforehand, the uncertainty and fear that likely accompanies every premature delivery, and the out-of-my-element feeling that resulted from having this round be so unlike my other childbirth experiences. I didn’t know my own body, I didn’t know what would happen, I didn’t know anything. Every expectation I had about what my labor and delivery would be like was turned on its head. The baby, while appropriately turned on his head, must have been facing the wrong way, which meant that he wasn’t moving along the way he should have been. The anesthesia failed. And the Pitocin-fueled contractions were enough to push me right over the edge of composure.

Now logically, everything was just fine in that birthing room. The atmosphere was a bit tense because of the increased risk of problems with the baby’s health, and while all possible preparations were in place to temper a full-blown medical emergency, we never had one.

But I had a little emergency of my own.

It came right at that apex when the pain is intense enough to make me wish for a hasty exit from earth, or at least the freedom to curl up into a tight ball and preserve all my strength for weathering the pain. That’s the exact moment when I’m expected to assume a very un-curled-up position and somehow channel all my strength elsewhere. Of course it’s hard. But what I felt went way beyond hard. Suddenly and unexpectedly, I was walloped with a feeling of hopelessness I’ve never felt before during childbirth.
This was new and unthinkable territory. The determination that had kept me engaged thus far–I have to get through this, for the baby’s sake–began to slip. My concern for self was eclipsing concern for other–and not just any “other,” but the most innocent and vulnerable and dependent and deserving “other” imaginable.

Despair, for a mother, may be defined as thus: being in so much pain and desperation that you’d consider abandoning your child in order to bring yourself relief.

***

When I was first awakening to Christianity I found it difficult to fully sympathize with Jesus. I didn’t doubt that what he endured was awful, much more awful than anything that man has endured. But after all, he wasn’t a regular guy. Didn’t being a demi-god give him just a wee bit of an edge?
It took me years to realize that, in fact, Jesus’ supercapacity did not work in his favor, so to speak. Actually, the opposite was true. Yes, he was stronger–much stronger–than any of us. But that just meant he was able to bear far more. It didn’t make it easier. It just made the depths much, much deeper. And that’s just the beginning. Not only did the depths exceed any place within our ability to grasp, but he also had the capacity to free himself from those depths at any given time.

This is the stunning truth of Christianity: that a being not only voluntarily suffered beyond our puny mortal comprehension, to free us puny mortals, but also sustained his suffering through his own power. His body did not manufacture its own misery, as a woman’s does during labor. He was not just a willing participant in an act beyond his control. The circuit of pain could remain open only through his own unflagging will.

I still cry every time I think about Thomas’s delivery. I’m frightened by the memory of pain so keen and commanding. And I’m ashamed of my weakness, ashamed that I had, even for a fleeting time, looked for an out.

But God is wise enough to not offer us outs in times of creative extremity. No, that’s a torment he reserved only for himself.

Shoveling Out

February 7th, 2006
Mothering

When the new year rolled around I got this burning urge to get rid of all my stuff. Maybe, I thought, I could actually become the person I had resolved to be if I scrapped my battle-scarred, stained environment and started over. Clothes. Furniture. Especially, the disgusting flooring in my house. It was all I could do to keep myself from grabbing a crowbar and ripping at the dirty carpet and worn parquet. Out! Out!

Given the fact that we have no money for new flooring, I abstained. But I still kept looking around, imagining shiny hardwood, new paint, and clean couches. I decided to focus my fanatical fantasizing elsewhere.

The first victim: toys. It’s taken me close to ten years, but I’m finally finished with the tyranny of too many toys. It takes me two entire days each week to put everything where it belongs, and it takes the kids about two minutes to dump it all out again. They play happily for an hour or two, and then we spend the rest of the week stepping on or over things until it’s time to clean again. I’m a slow learner. I just don’t have the self-discipline to take care of lots of things–let alone teach my kids to do the same.

So…. Out! Out! Ninety percent of the stuff got boxed up and stacked in the garage. I know, I know, but we have no money for child therapy either. At least they know their piles of stuff are tucked safely away (yet safely out of their reach) on the dusty shelves, somewhere out there. Of course, they still manage to spread that last ten percent into every corner of the house, but my sense of control has increased 900 percent. At least.

Aaaaah.

Next victim: clothes. I ripped through my closet with no mercy. Every time I grabbed something off its hanger, I felt like I lost 2 pounds. If only actual weight loss were this simple, and enjoyable.

Next, Reed hauled 30 boxes of kids’ clothes into our living room for me to sort through. Had it not been for my manic mindset, this task would have reduced me to stubble. Visual overload! Decision overload! But the timing was perfect. I regarded the stacks with a conquering eye, and dug in with relish.
The first box was a pile of girl baby clothes.

No, I told myself. Don’t waffle. It’s time to move on, time to give this to someone who can use it. This daughter who has lived in my mind for years will likely never materialize–and if she ever does, it will be an occasion that calls for brand new baby clothes. Take a deep breath, and put it all in the “give” pile. Out! Out!

So, after a brief pause, I steamrolled ahead. The give pile grew, and grew. A dozen boxes of girl clothes, a half dozen of boy clothes. Thomas couldn’t possibly need all this stuff. There are half-naked children who do need it. Today.

But my eyes kept straying back to those damn little dresses and pink sleepers. I kept picking them up, then putting them back down, again and again.

Finally, I started another pile.

In went all the handmade things from my mother-in-law. In went the dresses my girls have worn in their childhood photographs. In went the “Daddy’s Little Girl” sleeper. I stowed this relatively small pile in a plastic tub under Thomas’s crib.

Aaaah.

Whether Mystery Girl ever shows up or not, I have my most prized mementos tucked safely away. And even better–I have years and years of little-girl memories tucked away too, somewhere in that cavernous internal garage of mine. True, I can’t always reach them, but someday, I trust I will be privileged to take every box off those dusty shelves, open them, and savor the contents, again and again.

That’s part of heaven’s allure for me: power over time. The merging of past, present, and future into one eternal now. Finally, the ability to grasp and hold “the fugitive moment which refuses to stay.”

All while sitting on a clean couch, in a room with fresh paint and shiny hardwood floors.

A River in a Time of Dryness

January 12th, 2006
Marriage

I used to think that one of the downsides to being in a stable marriage is knowing you’ll never fall in love again. I mean, really, passionately in love. When your every cell is supercharged with life, and the whole earth feels renewed with promise.

Truth be told, I didn’t even experience that kind of heady power before I got married. At least, not to the extent that I knew was possible, in fabled theory. Happy as I was after the big “yes,” part of me felt that I had missed out on the stuff of legends. Period.

Thankfully, I was wrong.

Which is more wonderful — discovering such love after nearly thirteen years of marriage, at the very moment when the relationship hits a pinnacle of crisis?

Or conceiving, in the midst of it all, a child, who will live forever as a token of that discovery?

Or realizing, nearly a year later, that the rush of the river, although seemingly tamed by exhaustion and life-grind, flows just as surely still?

Or grasping the stunning truth that grace, and mutual desire, will bring untold length and depth to the water, worlds without end?

A Good Gift

October 16th, 2005
Mothering, Spirituality

It happens, sooner or later, during every pregnancy: I get scared.

Of course, there’s no shortage of things to be scared of when you’re pregnant. Miscarriage/stillbirth, complications, birth defects–I started enumerating some examples but I quickly gave up and erased them, because there’s too many to even take a stab at.

But what haunts me most is a twofold question that, when it surfaces, stops me cold:

Will life be a good thing for this baby? And will this baby’s life be a good thing for me?

How can I doubt the goodness of bringing a soul to earth? Because it’s messy, and hard, and dangerous–both for the child, and for me. Not just the birth part, but everything afterward.

Can I really adequately care for another child? I don’t know–define “adequate.” My good friend has a philosophy of life that I admire: she doesn’t take on any more than she knows she can well care for. If she only has the resources to care for 6 tomato plants in her garden, she only plants six, and gives them meticulous care. She takes the same approach with her interior homemaking, her family life, and her other responsibilities.

My approach is a lot more haphazard. I get sloppy, even with things that are very important.
Every time a new baby is on the way, I wonder what the heck I’m doing. It’s not like I’m doing such a stellar job with the children I already have, that I clearly should invite another. The postpartum period is so draining and demanding–I feel as if I’m on the bare edge of survival for months. Things go to pot. Family life gets permanently and exponentially more complex each time we add another member.

Contemplating these inevitable outcomes can feel a lot like falling off a cliff in slow motion. At first the view is lovely and the bottom seems too far away to be threatening. But as I get closer and closer, I know I’m going to crash, and that it’s going to take a long time to climb out of chaos and into comfortable, routine, manageable life again. Not that it ever stays comfortable, routine, and manageable for long.

And that’s just part I of the issue.

The other side of it is the child’s experience. I get scared about how my shortcomings will affect this person’s life. I worry about the crazy family dynamic he or she will be tossed into. And overall I worry about life itself. What sufferings will this soul be required to endure? On a rational level I know that pain is essential to progression, and that this mortal life is the gateway to a potentially glorious future. But it hurts, really bad, to think about the innocence and vulnerability of a new baby, and the darkness of this world, some of which dwells within my own mortal self.

So–I get scared. But before I lapse into deep melancholy, allow me to report the series of experiences and memories that allowed me to transcend my latest bout of mid-pregnancy fear.

1. On agency

In our old neighborhood we lived across the street from a very depressing family. The deplorable physical condition of the yard and home was a good match for the mess of abuse and other problems that plagued the family’s relationships. I was a visiting teacher to one of the daughters in that home, a young adult who had suffered horribly over the years. One night when I made a visit, she was babysitting one of her sister’s children (it was a family tradition of sorts to bear children out of wedlock–there were a half-dozen or so living there at the time). This baby was lying on a filthy, crusty couch. He only had a diaper on. His mother was prone to disappearing for days at a time, leaving him in the care of her younger siblings, who were none too pleased to have the responsibility thrust upon them. Needless to say, the baby and the other “cousins” were not well-treated.

He was a gorgeous child–half Latino, with olive skin and huge, deep-deep brown eyes and long lashes. He stood out like a sparkling jewel amidst the squalor of his surroundings.

When I was home again I thought about the future that awaited him. My heart hurt so much I didn’t think I could bear it. I just couldn’t reconcile his perfect, holy little self with the circumstances he had been placed within. How could this be okay?

The answer came, clearly and firmly: He chose to come.

2. Beauty all around

During my fifth pregnancy, my regular pregnancy freak-out came back for a second round when I was in the hospital. With the drama of childbirth over, real life came rushing in as I realized I’d be bringing Matthew home the next day. As I sat on the hospital bed with my delicious little blanket-wrapped guy on my lap, I was overwhelmed by the whole prospect. How could I ever pull this off? And what had ever made me think this was a good idea?

The door opened, and in walked an elderly hospital volunteer bearing a floral arrangment from my mother. As she crossed the room I stared at the flowers. I had a distinct impression that my son was something truly wonderful and lovely–a gift that had just entered my life, like the flowers that had just been carried into the room.

When the woman noticed my baby she stopped in her tracks. “Oh!” she exclaimed with a deep sigh. She looked at me kindly, yet intently. “Oh, I envy you.”

Matthew. The name means “gift of god.”

3. Bread and fish

I was way tired and grumpy as Relief Society began a few weeks ago. I was sitting in the front row with my legs sprawled out in front of me. Even with the help of the padding on the folding chair, I was still really uncomfortable after sitting there for the Sunday School hour. As the RS President bustled around, adjusting the tablecloth and all that, she came upon my legs. They were a kind of roadblock. She paused politely, waiting for me to assume a more ladylike position.

I suddenly felt so big, so cumbersome. Instead of getting depressed, I got huffy. I actually got up and moved to a seat in the back row.

The RS Pres, who really is a lovely woman, came back and apologized. I assured her that my relocation had nothing to do with the leg incident (which was a big fat lie). I was just more comfortable back there, I explained. And that was true. I just wanted to be left alone so I could wallow in the misery of very-largeness.

The local missionaries were guest teachers for the day. Their lesson was about member missionary work. They turned on the Church’s DVD about the restoration of the gospel in the latter days. I had already seen it a few times; in fact we had watched it as a family recently. So as soon as the lights went down, I zoned out into an almost-nap.

I snapped into alertness for some reason a few minutes before the program ended. Checking the monitor, I saw Joseph Smith Sr. handing his little son a hand-carved wooden horse, homemade–just like the one the boy had admired in the general store at the start of the story. The words of the voiceover sunk deep into me:

If ye then know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

4. While the sun shines

Not long ago we sang “Today, While The Sun Shines” for our pre-scripture-reading hymn. I’m not a huge fan of the sunshine-y hymns–I’m all for good cheer, but they remind me of that stereotypical overly perky RS pres. or something. They do, however, help the atmosphere at a 6:30 a.m. gathering. Anyway, as we sang, this line lodged brightly in my mind:

Today, while the birds sing, harbor no care: Call life a good gift, call the world fair.

I’ve been thinking about all this a lot lately. Preterm labor has landed me in the hospital for an extended stay. The first day I was here it seemed highly likely that our son would be born very soon. At 28 weeks’ gestation, he weighed about 3 lbs. They put me in a delivery room which had a drive-thru-type window that opened into the NICU. They warned me that as soon as the baby arrived, he’d be whisked through that window and likely put on a ventilator. It would be a few hours before I’d be able to see him, and who knows how long before I’d be able to hold him.

Miraculously my labor stalled, and my condition stabilized. I was moved out of the labor/delivery unit. Since then I’ve had plenty of time to think about that close call, about the tiny preemies I saw during the NICU tour, about this time-bomb uterus of mine, about the possible outcomes of this little drama.
Here’s what’s assuaging all (okay, most) of my current freak-out tendencies:

Knowing–and not just in my head–that this new, impatient life within me is a good gift. It’s a good gift for me, even though that goodness necessarily emerges amidst the fog, stress, and even trauma of mortal life. And it’s a good gift for this son of mine. Even if he only lives a few minutes, or must endure long-term complications, or simply has to weather childhood in my household, life is a good gift.

And while the world hardly seems fair, especially for the children born into pain and squalor, someday our understanding will expand, divine compensation will kick in, and we’ll realize that things are fair after all.

Imagine that. I might even learn to love those sunshine-y hymns.

ER

August 4th, 2005
Musings

For me, having heart palpitations during pregnancy is normal. But having heart pain is not. The OB nurse recommended that I go to the ER to get my oxygen levels checked, and get an EKG.

Knowing how things can go in the ER, I figured it would take a couple of hours to get my tests done. No problem. Kids were home with Grandma (good timing on that visit, Mom).

At first I enjoyed (?) the full attention of the staff. Chest pain + obvious pregnancy = brisk concern. Half reclined on my narrow “bed,” I had three people working on me at once–one inserted an IV and drew blood, one stuck approximately three dozen sticky lead attachments all over my body (yes, several of them looked like stri-dex pads), one peppered me with questions (Who’s here with me today? Nobody. Was I short of breath? was I nauseated? Of course, I’m pregnant). Thankfully the EKG was normal. The air of crisis departed, along with the nurses. And the waiting began.

It went something like this: nurse announces that attending physician would be in shortly. Wait 40 minutes. Attending physician comes in for five minutes, announces that nurse would be in to do x,y, or z. Wait forty minutes. Repeat.

I was fine for a while. I read my two People magazines, and tried not to think about my aching IV arm (the needle was at an odd angle), my filling bladder, and my rumbling stomach. But after a couple of hours I began to wilt. I couldn’t get off the bed because of the tangle of leads. There was no call button, so if I wanted to get someone’s attention I had wait, or call out into the hall when I saw shoes passing by beneath the door curtain. Normally I don’t mind being alone; in fact, I count it a singular treat. But there was something about the surroundings, the occasion, the multiple discomforts, that resulted in acute loneliness. I felt like I had entered some alternate reality–that the entire universe consisted of my little ER cubby. I got weak and dizzy from hunger (couldn’t eat until they knew I wouldn’t be having surgery). During the fourth hour, I actually cried.

At the start of the sixth hour, after analyzing the monitor readouts, the lab results, and the chest CT scan, they couldn’t find anything wrong with me. Of course I was grateful. After I ripped off all the adhesive pads and some of my skin, I was also grateful to perch on the edge of my bed and eat my hospital dinner. I even turned on the TV, which I could finally reach, as I shoveled in my cheeseburger.
CNN was showing footage of starvation in Niger.

Later that night as I tried to settle into sleep on my comfy bed at home, I felt something sharp and scratchy poking a tender spot on my side. It was one of the square lead attachments I had overlooked. I ripped it off and tried to rub away the remaining adhesive. But I could use one on my soul somewhere, a nagging, poking token to remind me how little I know of hunger, pain, and loneliness.

Yin and Yang

July 22nd, 2005
Marriage

Recently I’ve been re-reading parts of Judith Viorst’s Necessary Losses. Her approach is way too Freudian for me to swallow wholesale, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

One claim she makes is that we tend to marry people who act out the parts of our own personalities that we repress out of fear. This goes beyond the more obvious spouse-as-complement idea (e.g. a lazy man marries a hard-working woman, a loud woman marries a quiet man). Could it be true?

The other day, Matt, our destructo four-year-old, created a whopping toilet clog with wads of toilet paper. Poor Andrew, the innocent eight-year-old, flushed. (Later on Andrew told me that in the past, flushing had cleared up the problem–toilet paper experiments are popular around here.)

We had just sat down to dinner when I heard the dreaded sound of an indoor waterfall. Rushing to the bathroom, I found a major deluge. For some reason, the water flow hadn’t stopped once the toilet tank was full. “Reed,” I called, “emergency!” And here’s the funny part: I didn’t feel at all worried, or upset, about the water. I was a bit reluctant for my husband to see it, because I knew what his reaction would be, but overall I was–shall I say it?–serene.

Predictably, Reed was furious. Sharp scoldings came. As I grabbed towels and our carpet-cleaning vacuum (great for sucking up water) I felt badly for Matt, who of course didn’t intend to cause true disaster, and for Andrew, who of course didn’t either. But I realized that had Reed not been there, I would have been furious too. Would have scolded, would have fumed. Since he was aptly playing out that role, I didn’t have to.

Having Viorst’s claims freshly in mind, this got me thinking. My husband has a few traits that I don’t like, and they are the very things I fear in myself. It’s entirely possible that (among many other reasons) I chose him in order to vicariously express myself in taboo ways. So even as I resent some of his personality and behavior, he’s actually contributing to my sense of emotional safety. Oh, the irony.

(There’s a whole part in the book about marrying Daddy, and I hate to say it but my husband is a lot like my father…)

A couple days after the toilet clog I found a note my nightstand from Christine, age 6:

Mom is 100% Mom, 0% Dad
Dad is 100% Dad, 0% Mom

Maybe she’s been reading my Viorst book.

Silence

July 12th, 2005
Loss

I just got an email from my college roommate.

Back in our dorm days she was the object of much attention, from both males and females, but she never paid much notice to her popularity. Beautiful, cheerful, unpretentious. Infectious smile. She was kind to everyone. And we all predicted that loveliness would be hers in all aspects of her life, forever.

It was halfway through our sophomore year when she hit the first pothole. We were roommates again, this time in a six-woman apartment. I was in our little, steamy bathroom getting ready for church when she called to me through the closed door. I opened it to her trembling face. “My mom found a lump in her leg.” She could barely get the words out. Her mother was a breast cancer survivor and seemed to be doing well, until that day–and she was never truly well again.

My friend left for a Mormon mission to Uruguay, but returned home a few months later severly ill with parasites. It was so strange to consider. A golden glow had always seemed to surround her; now she was mired down in a most unpleasant state, bloated and weak. She was out of commission for months. The very order of the universe seemed to be reversed.

Next came an ill-fated temple marriage to Joe Nice Guy, a returned missionary. Turns out that being faithful to his wife wasn’t on his Franklin Planner list. A few months after the divorce, my friend lived with me for a while. Outwardly she was her usual upbeat self–almost. Her cheer wasn’t as bright around the edges. She told me that she cried every day, overcome by betrayal and loss.

She moved back to her hometown and I didn’t hear from her until I got a wedding invitation in the mail. She was marrying her high school boyfriend. I couldn’t attend the ceremony. I hoped that she was finally finding happiness.

A few years later she contacted me after reading my Christmas letter, which shared the news of our sixth child’s neonatal crisis. “When I saw ‘NICU’ in your letter, I knew I could talk to you,” she wrote in an email. The story of her life since the wedding followed in a few paragraphs, punctuated by grief. A miscarriage. A daughter with Downs Syndrome, stillborn at seven months gestation. A beautiful son, Charlie, who stopped gaining weight at two months and died at eight months, a victim of liver disease.
Her father, a former leader in the local church, was gone; he had abandoned his wife and family some time before. Her mother succumbed to cancer three months after Charlie died.

I could barely imagine it. How could she have lived it?

A year later, I held my breath during the final weeks of her fourth pregnancy, barely daring to hope for happy news. But it came: Louisa, a gorgeous daughter, who soon developed a grin that would charm your socks off.

Louisa died just a few weeks ago. She was seven months old.

No parents left, no children left.

The day after the funeral, my friend and her husband left for a respite in another state. “I’m scared to go home,” she wrote in the email I just got. “What now?”

What, indeed? Even though I come up with words in response, they’re just a thin veneer, a coating for the silence.

Being Enough

July 7th, 2005
Mothering, Spirituality

I’m sitting on my bed folding laundry. Sitting while folding is awkward because I have to keep twisting around in a weird way as I reach for the basket and the piles. But I can’t stand up for long because my thigh muscles are on sabbatical today. We took the kids swimming last night and I underestimated the toll of carrying small people around in deep water.

Doing laundry is my only productive endeavor for the day. And that’s been typical. While sitting I try to remember times that I’ve actually been the motivated, organized, creative teacher-mom that I’ve fantasized about for twelve years. Whenever I’m in a slump I tend to think that I’m really dropping the ball, that I’m usually a whole different animal. But I don’t think that’s actually true. That different animal is mostly a mental construct. I hold on to the fantasy as if my devotion to it can compensate for not being it. In reality I’ve had short stints where I’ve come close–I plan, I gather materials, I implement, I nurture and connect, singing as I go–but it doesn’t last long. Inevitably I revert to my usual schlepping mode.

I’m much better these days about accepting myself while in schlepping mode, but as I fold my underwear I’m suddenly panicky about my thoroughly mediocre mothering/homemaking. I haven’t had one of these panic attacks for a while. Luckily I remember what to do.

Please, I pray, let it be enough. Let me be enough. I don’t have anything else I can give. Please tell me that I am safe, and that they are safe, despite all I lack.

And God replies: It is. You are. They are.

This can seem hard to believe. I know how deep and weighty my responsibilities are. How can it really be okay to be so weak and unproductive? But I already know the answer, which rests beneath the muddy river of my rational thoughts:

I become enough, through grace, in the asking.